Again
by GracieHoltzbertTrash715
Summary: "The oak floorboards of the Jones-Smith-Cooper house creaked from the pressure of each footstep taken by Alice Smith. She paced back and forth with one hand on her hip, the other resting upon the side of her lip as she chewed on one of her freshly polished fingernails. What was taking so long? She needed FP home right now." / FALICE ONE SHOT


The oak floorboards of the Jones-Smith-Cooper house creaked from the pressure of each footstep taken by Alice Smith. She paced back and forth with one hand on her hip, the other resting upon the side of her lip as she chewed on one of her freshly polished fingernails. She could hear every tick of the second-hand on the clock over the fireplace, her heartbeat doubling the rhythm in time. What was taking so long? She needed FP home right now. She really had no idea what to do. She finally stopped biting her nail, but only to place her hand over her own forehead. The beat of her heart began to pound inside her head as her stomach growled. Had she eaten today? She couldn't remember.

Eventually, she stopped pacing to take a deep breath, her eyes looking up at the clock as she slowly let it out. Shaking her head at herself, she reached down onto the coffee table, picking up her cell phone and dialing FP's number, frantically placing the phone to her ear as she listened to the rings from the other end. After a while, there was no answer and she let out a frustrated breath, quickly hanging up and setting the phone back down onto the table in the center of the living room. The reporter anxiously tapped her foot where she stood, folding both of her arms over her chest as she impatiently waited, staring down at her phone screen.

Just when she was about to reach for her phone again, there was a squeal in the driveway, indicating that FP was finally home with his truck, which desperately needed a brake-check. Alice instantly looked out the window, seeing the truck's headlights shining through it and she rushed over to the front door, opening it. She stood in the doorway, looking out at FP's truck as the lights turned off and the sound of its awful engine finally stopped.

She just stood, waiting for him to step out of the vehicle and join her inside, tapping her foot impatiently again, this time between the threshold.

Finally, Forsythe the Second made his way up to the house porch, looking at her. "Hey, Alice."

"Why didn't you answer your phone?" She asked, a bit distressed.

"When?" He asked, walking up the porch steps.

"Just a minute ago." Alice replied.

"I was driving. I'm sorry. What's wrong?" He stopped right in front of her outside the door.

Alice didn't answer him and instead, stole a quick peck kiss from him before turning around and stepping further into the house, going back into the living room, expecting him to follow.

He did, shutting the door and taking off his sheriff's jacket before hanging it up and following her into the living room. "Al?"

She was still quiet, making her way back to the same spot where she stood before he had come home and she turned to face the man, placing all her weight on one foot,popping her hip out. She looked at him as if to wait for him to notice something.

After a moment of silence, FP finally expressed his confusion. "Al, what's going on?"

"You don't see it?" She asked, her hands migrating up to her hips once again.

"See what?"

"Oh, come on, FP. Use your eyes. Look around. Observe. That's what you do as the sheriff, isn't it?" She spoke in an irritated tone.

"Alice, are you mad at me for something?" He asked, genuinely out of the loop.

She closed her eyes, letting her head fall a little as she took another deep breath. "I'm sorry." She looked back up into his eyes. "I'm just a little shaky and I'm not really sure what to do about this."

"About what?" He furrowed his eyebrows.

Alice looked down at the coffee table and FP followed her gaze to the little white stick. "That." The blonde woman said quietly.

FP deeply inhaled. "You really think you're-" He stopped, still trying to process the fact that Alice just took a pregnancy test without telling him first….Again.

"I don't know. I mean I could be." Alice answered.

"Do you want to be?" He wondered.

"Do you want me to be?" She replied with her own question.

FP opened his mouth, about to respond before realizing that he could end up saying something wrong, so instead, he answered her question with a second question of his own. "Do you want me to want you to be?"

"FP, I'm serious." Alice stated.

"So am I. I want what you want." He looked down at the pregnancy test again from where he stood. "Is it positive?"

"I don't know yet. The timer hasn't gone off." Alice looked down at it too as if it were a bomb in the center of the room.

FP looked back up at her, noticing the look of uncertainty on her face and he slowly stepped over to her. Placing his hands upon her shoulders, he bent his head down a little in the hopes that she would look at him, and once she did, he spoke softly. "Hey, whatever it is….I'm right here."

Alice looked deeply into his eyes and nodded. She opened her mouth, about to speak, just as the alarm on her phone went off and she deeply inhaled. The couple turned their heads to look down at the test and Alice slowly lifted it, holding it in both hands while she stared at it. Soon, she let out a breath, sinking down onto the couch.

FP watched her sit. "What does it say?" He sat down as well, still facing her.

Alice bit her lip as she turned the test in her hand to show FP that it was positive. The man gently grabbed her wrist as if to get a better look at it. A smile threatened to grow on his lips, but he stopped it, looking up into her sea blue eyes to see how she felt first.

"FP, I-" She spoke hesitantly. "I have grandchildren. I should not be having another baby."

FP nodded, though he was a bit saddened by that sentence. "I'll support your decision, whatever it is."

Alice looked down at the test again in her hands, slightly nodding. "It's just…" She let out a hurt sigh. "Why is it that when everything is so right for us...it's always the wrong time?" She looked up into his eyes, hers filled with pain and regret from the past, though FP could see a hint of a hopeful sparkle for the future in them.

"Al, Al…" He took the test from her and set it down on the coffee table before holding both of her hands between them. "Maybe it's NOT the wrong time."

"FP-" She began to protest.

"No. No. Just...hear me out." He softly interrupted. "The kids are all about to graduate. With the exception of Jelly Bean….but she's usually just up in her room or at a friend's house anyway. It'll just be the two of us in this big house soon. Why not have one more? This time to raise together?"

"It's a nice dream, FP, but we can't. The kids….they'll never understand."

"They were fine when you told them about Charles." FP pointed out.

"And what about Charles?" Alice tilted her head a little as if to tell FP to be reasonable.

"What about Charles?" FP wondered.

"How do you think he's going to feel hearing that we've decided to raise another baby together when we gave him up?" She asked sadly.

"He'll understand. We were kids back then." FP picked up her hands, kissing both of them.

Alice's heart jumped as she watched him do that and she almost forgot what they were talking about before shaking her head to snap out of it, his charm always getting the better of her. "We're too old." She tried to rationalize.

"I think we're just getting started, baby." FP said with a large smile.

Alice couldn't help but smile as well and playfully roll her eyes with a chuckle. "Our baby is going to be wearing diapers at the same time as YOU." She joked.

"Heyyy!" FP acted offended. "You'll be in them before me. Mark my words."

"Oh, please. I've given birth three times and I still have excellent bladder control. Unlike you, Mr. Has-To-Use-The-Bathroom-Every-Twenty-Minutes." She playfully clapped back.

"You're so mean." FP laughed, causing Alice to softly giggle before he gently kissed her. When he broke the kiss, he brushed her hair behind her ear. "Tell me what you want. Forget the kids, forget our age...Just...What do you want?"

Alice looked down a bit sadly, holding back tears as she quietly replied. "I want to see you with a baby...Mine." She looked back up into his eyes. "But in reality, FP, we can't just forget the kids or forget our age. Nor our jobs. I finally just started down at R.I.V.W. And you...You JUST became sheriff."

"We can make it work. Come on, I've met your boss. He's obsessed with you. I bet he would keep you on until you're about to pop and he'll let you stick behind the desk down at the station the last couple months of the pregnancy. He'd rather gouge out his own eyes than fire you at this point. And for me...I'm the sheriff. I can mostly do desk work if that's what I have to do. I'll have my deputies go out and do field work for me until our baby is old enough to drive if that's what you want. And, if-...if not...then I can quit and stay here to watch the baby. I don't care." He kissed her hands again. "Don't turn this down before we try."

Alice looked into his eyes for a while, trying to think of a response before the front door suddenly opened and she quickly covered the pregnancy test on the coffee table with a piece of paper. She stood up, smiling at her son. "Hi, sweetie." She smiled brightly at Charles, going over to greet him by the entrance to the living room.

FP stayed seated where he was briefly before sighing a little and he stood too, turning to look at him. "Hey, kid."

"Alice...FP." Charles smiled back at them. "I hope you don't mind. Betty invited me over for dinner. I'm a little early."

"No. We don't mind at all." Alice said, placing an arm on his back as she stood beside him, looking at FP.

"Of course not. You can always come over." FP felt a strange knot in the pit of his stomach, looking at the two of them standing there together, realizing that this was one of the first times since they met that he, Charles, and Alice had been in a room together all alone.

"You sure? I don't want to feel like I'm ever just barging in on you guys or interrupting." Charles said a bit timidly, looking between the both of them.

"You didn't interrupt anything. Right, FP?" Alice said.

"R-Right." FP said, his eyes briefly flicking to the paper that rested over the pregnancy test. "I'll go start dinner." As he walked by Alice and Charles, he stopped for just a second, tempted to reach for her belly with his hand, but he changed his mind and continued walking into the kitchen.

The whole time he cooked, his mind seemed to be blank and every sound he heard was muffled. Alice and Charles stayed in the living room to talk. FP could make out Alice's laughs, but barely as his thoughts were completely fuzzy. He started to wonder if she had been right about the timing and maybe they shouldn't make their families anymore complicated than they already were. But he really wanted one with her. One to raise from infancy.

Soon, he rejoined them in the living room and sat on Alice's left side though she looked at Charles on her right as he told her old stories from his childhood. The sheriff wasn't expecting Alice to notice him sit beside her because she was so focused on their son, but she did. Without even looking at FP, her hand moved to his knee the moment his rear hit the couch cushion beneath him. That caused FP to relax a bit more and he smiled, listening to the end of Charles' story and laughing with them when it was over, placing his hand over Alice's on his knee.

Alice responded to the story with one of her own. As she and Charles laughed and spoke during the share of her memory, FP looked at the both of them, not entirely listening as he just studied them, seeing how happy they both were. Realizing how happy they all were. He knew how complicated a baby could be and how exhausting parenting is. And they were almost done. Once Jelly Bean was gone….he and Alice could relax. He started to see her point of view, his heart melting every time he heard both Alice and Charles laughing together. He smiled brightly...looking down at the paper on the table once more and deciding that perhaps, everything was already perfect the way it was.

"Actually...FP and I have a question to ask you." Alice said.

FP finally snapped out of his daze at the mention of his name.

"What is it?" Charles wondered, looking between the two.

Alice grabbed FP's hand, lacing their fingers together. "We know this might be a sore subject for you. But we will understand if you're upset and we would like to know what you would be comfortable with."

FP was now very confused, almost more so than Charles.

"Okay." Charles nodded cautiously.

Alice reached over, removing the paper from the coffee table uncovering the pregnancy test. Charles looked at it, his eyes widening just slightly as he looked at the positive symbol and then back at his parents. The woman sitting between the men spoke again. "We aren't sure what we should do. We both seem to want the baby, but are concerned about you and your siblings. But mostly you."

"Me? Why me?" Charles wondered, looking between both parents.

"Well...because if we keep it...we don't want you to be upset or to feel neglected again and if we get rid of it...we don't want you to feel like you're alone or like we just send all of our kids away."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Alice." Charles said, already feeling overwhelmed by the conversation and it just began. "This isn't my decision." He stated. "Have you spoken to Betty or Jughead yet? Or Jelly Bean?"

"No. We just found out before you arrived." Alice admitted.

FP felt his thoughts becoming fuzzy again. Now Alice DID want the baby? He couldn't keep up. He smirked to himself, however, knowing that that's one of the things he loved about her and he tuned back into the conversation.

"What do YOU guys want?" Charles asked.

"I'm okay with either decision." FP finally spoke again.

Alice smiled and nodded. "As am I, darling. Whatever you think is best for the entire family-"

"What's best for the family is for the two heads of the household to be happy. So it is no one's decision, but yours. Talk to the others...but don't do what THEY want or what I want. Your choice is what matters...If you choose not to keep it...that's alright. But if you do….then we'll all just have to adjust and be happy." Charles watched as FP and Alice looked at each other as if they weren't sure what to do now and he stood up. "I'll give you two a moment." Before they could protest, Charles left the room, heading to the bathroom.

Alice turned to face FP.

It had begun to rain outside as Betty and Jughead looked at each other in the car. "Do you think we could go inside now?" Betty wondered aloud.

"Maybe...It still looks like they're having an intense conversation though." Jug said, looking back into the window of the house.

"I wonder where Charles went." Betty said, looking through the other windows in the house, hoping to spot her older brother.

"I don't know….But let's go in. I'm starving." Jelly Bean poked her head between the two front seats from the back.

Betty and Jug looked at each other once more as if to communicate if it was a good idea to go in yet or not and they both nodded once before taking off their seatbelts and getting out of the car, running up the porch steps to dodge the rain. Just as they made it to the big red door on the front of the Jones-Smith-Cooper house, they could see in the window as Alice and FP hugged each other tightly on the couch.

Jughead, Betty, and Jelly Bean all looked around at each other before going inside to find out what was going on.

The End.

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**A/N: Hiiiii! Yes, I know I have other fics I still need to update right now, but this idea popped into my head and it was just a one shot, so I decided, why not write it now? **

**The Ending: I ended it this way so that you, the reader, can interpret it however you want. YOU get to decide if they keep the baby or not. **

**Let me know how you picture it in your head. I'd love to hear all your thoughts.**

**LEAVE COMMENTS AND REVIEWS BELOW!**


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